Children’s Ministry and Culture

I just finished revising my chapter on Acts 9– the so called Samarian Pentecost. One of the barriers the disciples had in accomplishing the Great Commission was being willing to visit the Samarian. Samaria was a “Creole culture” that had assimilated Assyrian culture and religious themes. The Samaratins, I learned, were actually a Jewish religious sect in Samaria… they had a different scriptural cannon and insisted the true temple was in Gerazim, not Jerusalem.

When Jesus sent the disciples to Samaria, he wasn’t sending them to non-believers or godless people, but to “bad” believers– those who had faith in God but with what the disciples viewed as twisted, dangerous, and even dangerous views.

No matter how bad the Christians were treated in Jerusalem they could at least say “We aren’t like those Samarians.”

It wasn’t until Saul’s persecution of the Hellenistic Christians in Jerusalem, that the believers were willing to overcome their bigotry and share Jesus with the “bad” believers. The believers had to share a “misfit” label before they would share Jesus with the misfits to the north.

It seems to me that we protect and insulate our children from bad influences. But God sends his follows into “Samarias”, and I suppose that includes his kid-sized followers too. We need to teach our children that church-behavior doesn’t impress God, that they are, like their parents, loved misfits. And they can share Jesus and joy with anyone.